


in between

by JustALilSnail



Series: patientiam operatur [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Child Abuse, Connor centric, Gen, Homicide, Hurt Travis Stoll, I Need Help With Tagging, Major character death - Freeform, Minor Character Death, OC death, Travis centric, Unhappy Ending, everything about this is self-indulgent, implied suicide, minor character origin story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29683236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustALilSnail/pseuds/JustALilSnail
Summary: In the end, Travis is the only one he really cares about.
Relationships: Connor Stoll & Travis Stoll
Series: patientiam operatur [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1295864
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	in between

Connor’s about one and a half years old when he’s starting to notice his mother hates him and Travis. She doesn’t talk to them. She ignores them. She locks them out of the apartment sometimes. She looks at them like they’re the scum of the world, even though she shares Travis’s goofy smile and dorky laugh and the way Travis’s eyes twinkle when he’s excited and the way he rambles when he’s nervous and the way he frets when he’s worried.

“That’s okay if she doesn’t like us,” Travis tells him, a hand holding onto his — tight and warm — as he leads them to a playground for the night. “We can pretend we’re camping and you can tell me all about the stars!”

Connor’s two when he realized his stepdad hates them too. He tries to poison their food with rat poison. He tries to lock them in the garage with the running car. He tries to give them candy laced with cyanide. He looks at them with indifference but when he thinks Connor isn’t watching, he has the same hate burning in his eyes as their mom. 

“It’s okay,” Travis says — unbothered and carefree — and tosses the food into the trash can, “We can eat Sunny’s food.”

Connor’s three when he realized everybody hates him and Travis. Dad kicks them out. Mom locks the door. There’s no way to survive except to steal and nobody likes stealers. The way everybody glares at them… sneers at them… whispers behind their back and calls authorities on them… Connor hates it, but Travis smiles at him — bright and happy — and says, 

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I'm here, aren't I?” 

And Travis’s right. As long as he has Travis then everything isn’t so bad. 

Connor’s four when he learns Travis can understand the pet dog, Sunny. “He’s arguing with someone named Hermes,” Travis tells him. “Listen.” But all Connor hears is Sunny barking and yipping at the sky. Connor doesn’t like that he can’t do what Travis can, but Travis smiles and shrugs. “That’s okay. You’re better at a lot of things than I am. We can cover each other that way.”

Connor’s five when he learns Jamie likes them. He wobbles around with his little three-years-old feet, following them wherever they go. Connor doesn’t like it. Connor doesn’t like the way Jamie clings to his shirt. Connor doesn't like the way Jamie looks up to him without a scowl, but big, blue eyes filled with nothing but curiosity. _“‘Appy birthday, Conny,”_ Jamie says to him and Connor hates how happy it makes him. Mom and dad would get angry if they see Jamie with them. But Travis laughs and says, “It’s okay. What they don’t know won’t hurt. Right, JJ?”

Connor’s six when Jamie dies. A mistake on their part. Connor always knew Travis is a little bit too carefree, a little bit too casual, blithe and airy. Connor likes it but some would consider it a flaw. That’s where Connor was supposed to cover for him. Be the weight of the balloon that is his brother. The reason to his free-spirit. 

But he didn’t. He didn’t stop Travis from using the phone. And now there’s a monster in the living room and Jamie is _dead_ . They didn’t even hold the phone for that long. But in a minute, a monster is crashing through the window. It whirls to face them and the tail hits Jamie on the head. Their half-brother falls down. He isn’t getting up. He’s not living anymore. Connor can see his soul leaving his body. Jamie’s dead. Jamie’s dead. Jamie’s dead but Travis isn’t and they need to run now. They need to leave _now._

But Travis is frozen, staring at Jamie’s body. Jamie’s dead. It’s their fault. But all Connor hears is Travis muttering over and over, “my fault, my fault, my fault, my fault.”

Over and over and over, unmoving even as the monster stalks closer and closer and closer. 

Connor yells for Travis to snap out of it, to please snap out of it. The bedroom door opens. A woman, mom, is screaming. There’s a handgun in dad’s hand. The monster turns, lunges for dad, biting into his shoulder. Mom runs to the kitchen to get a knife and notices the phone in Travis’s trembling hands. She rips it away from him, screaming louder and yelling and crying and when she raises a fist, Connor pushes Travis aside and takes the hit for him. 

Finally Travis snaps out of it. He takes Connor’s hands and runs out the front door, leaving behind their half-sibling, dad and mom. 

“I'll kill you,” she says, she promises, to their running backs. “I’ll kill you.”

Travis runs and runs and runs and runs and Connor follows. They don’t stop. They don’t look back. But they regret and mourn and when Travis trips and faceplants into the asphalt, when Connor frets over his brother’s hunched and quivering back, when Connor hears his brother sniveling and muttering again and again, “my fault, my fault,” Connor takes a deep breath, forces the tears back, and tells Travis they need to keep running. 

Travis clings to him, buries his face in his shirt. “I didn’t mean to. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t leave me. I didn't mean to.”

Connor says he doesn’t hate him. He could never hate him. But he thinks it falls on deaf ears. 

Mom chases after them, intent on getting revenge, and Travis leads her on a wild goose chase. They hitch rides, stow on trains, snuck onto boats, did everything one can do to stay under the radar even as she grows desperate and hires people to go after them. 

They met Sunny when hiding in a dumpster in Los Angeles. He’s holding two bags into his mouth, pressing them into their hands before disappearing off into the streets. “They’re magic bags,” Travis tells him. “Sunny says it’s from our dad. Our real dad. Someone named Hermes. He said to go East. To New York City. Someone will help us there. Huh... the bags are different. Rock, paper, scissors? Whoever wins, picks first.” 

They scamper and hide and grovel, eating from the dumpster and Connor’s bag, living in the alleyways and Travis’s bag, somehow managing to keep one step above her, somehow, someway. Connor’s pretty sure it is just dumb luck. 

It is dumb luck. 

A man corners them, mid-October, and points a gun at them. Connor’s panicking but Travis grabs his wrist, body shaking but eyes strong, and squeezed three times. A second later, Travis throws his bag at the man’s face. Travis darts right, ice pick in hand, and out of habit, Connor darts left, tugging out the taser he stole from a police officer. 

Travis gets to the man first (Travis is always the faster one and Connor never really minded, not until today) and buries the pick into flesh. The gun drops. Connor fumbles for it but Travis ultimately gets to it and pulls the trigger. 

It doesn’t need to be said. Connor can see it in the way the gun clatters to the ground and Travis just stills, eyes going vacant staring at the dead body. 

(Don’t look.)

Connor’s six when he grabs his brother by the hand and smiles as wide as he could. “It’s okay, Travis. It’s going to be okay. It’s not your fault,” Connor says as he leads them away from the coming sirens. Connor doesn’t really know how to read maps but that’s okay. He’s a pretty fast learner. 

They make it to Wyoming by late October. It’s cold in Wyoming. A lot colder than California. Travis goes into the mall to get them some thicker clothes while he stands on lookout. Connor hops from one foot to the other, tucks his numb fingers under his armpits, tries to picture warm, sunny California but none of it is stopping the cold. The buildings he’s hiding between aren't stopping the chill and he can see his breath with every exhale and it’s so so so cold but Travis appears by his side without a word and slings a scarf over his neck and tucks a beanie over his ears. 

“I’m back! Is that better? I’m sorry I couldn’t get gloves too. But please don’t get sick,” Travis says and Connor raises his head, squinting to see his brother’s face in the dark alleyway they’re hiding in. He can clearly see the lack of hat and scarf on Travis. 

“Where’s yours?” 

Travis shrugs. 

Connor takes off the hat and wraps it around Travis’s head. He catches the symbol on the hat, a skier skiing down a slope. Skiing. That’s a sport. He should have known. He should have thought about it a bit more. Stuffing a hand into Travis’s bag, he pulls out two mittens, two neck gaiters, and one helmet isn’t really as warm as a beanie but it’s something. Connor’s eyes narrow as he thinks of what else they need. Thicker jackets… better socks… warmer pants… pro-skiers don’t just wear a t-shirt and jeans to their races, right? They _have_ to wear something special. Something heat-insulating. Connor sneaks back inside the store and wanders around the sports aisle until he finds them, coming back out and pulling those out of the bag, one for each of them. 

They’re in Indiana by mid-November. They pickpocket money occasionally for a fresh burger at McDonalds every once and awhile. But sometimes, while taking the wallet, their hands snatch cell phones too. Then an accidental pushing of a button and a cyclops is chasing them around town. 

Connor learns his lesson then after nearly being boiled alive by a trio of cyclops. And also has a great idea.

If he takes out the batteries as soon as he can, the monsters won’t come. Then if he plugs it back in, dial 911, he has an instant monster summoning spell. 

Middle of December and they’re finally in New York City. 

Connor thought the moment they step in the city someone would help them or a sign will guide them to safety. They walk for hours in the city, long into the night, in the frigid snow. 

But there is nothing. 

Nobody is here to help them.

Connor screams for Sunny, for someone, for Hermes. But nobody is there. Nobody is their friend. They’re all enemies. 

Connor turns back to face Travis, his brother tired but hopeful still. 

“Let’s sleep and maybe tomorrow someone will come?” his brother says.

Connor doesn’t understand how Travis can be like that. They’re alone. It’s only him and his brother now. No one else. 

They stay in New York for no other reason other than the easy steals. No one really cares about a couple of food lifters like them. Plus there’s so many people. They can blend in. They can hide. 

“Just a few weeks here, then we stow on a plane and go to Japan or Taiwan,” Connor tells Travis as he tears into a bag of pop tarts. 

When not running from one street to the other, they spend their days experimenting with their bags. His bag supplies every food they need. Fruits in a mesh bag. Vegetables in a glass jar. Frozen food in the box. Fresh meat in their wrapped tray. A box of salt. A box of baking soda. A bag of chocolates. A bag of chips. Bottled water. A Pringle can.

Travis’s bag is cooler though. And funner. And more useful. Connor should have picked scissors. 

They sleep in the tent they pull from Travis’s bag. Connor didn’t know camping is a sport but he’s not complaining. It’s nice. Really, really nice. Too nice. It’s too conspicuous. But New York is so cold at night. And it’s so hard not to just sleep in it.

A mistake.

Christmas Eve. Claire’s people find them because someone complained about their tent to the police and the police filed that report into their system. Connor knows Claire’s friends are here because their steps are different from the others. It’s precise, intentionally quiet, purposeful when everybody else in New York is loud and hurried. He moves to wake Travis, but Travis is already awake. 

Travis passes him the hunting rifle and slowly stands. 

“Plan A,” Connor mouths. 

Travis nods and slings both of their bags over his shoulder. 

Connor raises the gun, waits for them to come.

“This is it?” a voice whispers not quiet enough. 

Connor aims where he can see their faint outline. Not the cops. Cops don’t whisper like this.

“Yeah, this is theirs. People around said they saw two boys enter it.”

Connor rests his finger on the trigger. Not civilians. Civilians don’t care about them.

“Alright, well, let’s sit here and watch. Claire is on her way.”

Connor fires. He hits one for sure, their scream cut short and gargled. He misses the other, their feet running away from them cursing. 

“Let’s go,” Connor says grimly, shoving the rifle back into Travis’s bag, and steps out. 

Travis takes down the tent in seconds and shoves it inside the bag where the holes will be healed. Connor doesn’t spare a glance at the bleeding body, just takes Travis’s hand and runs. He tugs hard when his brother makes the mistake to glance at the corpse. 

Connor pulls them into the crowd, weaving back and forth between the bustling pedestrians. He tries hard to not jostle them. The last thing he wants is for them to notice them. Not that his efforts matter. Someone’s following them. Connor can hear the man saying ‘excuse me’ to the crowds, much to their disgruntlement. Fear makes him pull his brother along faster. He squeezes his brother’s wrist twice. Travis squeezes back. Okay. 

Connor pulls them into an alley, breaking into a run once in the open. His heart fell when he heard someone yelling behind them. “Hey! Wait. Wait!” 

Another mistake. 

This alley is a dead end, figures. No fire escape they can escape up to. No sewers they can escape under to. 

Connor and Travis turn around reluctantly. Their follower is a blond boy — young, but older than them and bigger, stronger, maybe faster. A blond girl — young, their age, but not weak, she’s strong in a way Connor can’t put into words — pulls up beside the boy. 

They don’t look like Claire’s people. But who knows. Travis is the only one he should believe in right now. 

“Luke? Why are we here? Who are they?” the girl says, crossing her arms. “We’re supposed to be shopping for Christmas presents. Apollo is going to get mad if we don’t get everything from his list.”

“I know, but they caught my eye. I know they’re demigods. I can sense it.”

The girl gives them a look over that Connor doesn’t like. He doesn’t like any of this. He taps the back of Travis’s hand in morse code. P-H-O-N-E. 

“They don’t look like it to me.” 

“Go away,” Connor says, slinking a hand into his pocket. His hand wraps around the battery. 

“I just want to talk,” the boy says with his hands open, taking a step towards them. 

“Last warning.” Behind his back, Travis slips him the phone and Connor plugs it in. 

“We just want to talk. How about we all go to a cafe and —”

Connor takes the cellphone out of his pockets and flips it open. The girl flinches, stepping back and muttering, “Luke, they’re definitely not demigods. They’re carrying phones.”

He dials 911, yells for help, and presses it into the man’s hand and Travis duct tapes the two together. And they push past the girl and boy, ignoring their cries of terror. Connor leads them back into the bustling crowd, weaving through until they’re streets away. 

Their screams echo in his mind as he forges ahead. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt. It doesn’t matter who dies. None of it matters as long as he and Travis make it out okay. Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Keep running. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Just don’t ever stop running and it’ll be fine somehow, someway. 

The girl finds them hours later anyway. 

She’s alone.

She’s unflinching of the gun they point at her head. 

She tells them her name is Annabeth. 

She tells them there’s a place. 

A place normal people can’t enter unless they have permission.

“She can’t get in. You’ll be safe. I promise.”

It sounds too good to be true. It is too good to be true. Connor doesn’t take his finger off the trigger. 

“She’s telling the truth. Let’s follow her,” Travis says, ever the optimistic, and Connor —pessimistic as Travis likes to mutter, but he’s just being realistic — shakes his head.

“No.”

“But she’s not lying. I can’t — I don’t — I don’t know how to explain it, but I can sense when someone’s lying. And she isn’t lying.”

The girl — Annabeth — perks up, gray eyes sparkling. “Then you’re probably a son of Hermes. A lot of Hermes’s kids can sense liars. Luke sorta has that ability.” 

Travis breaks into a grin, a genuine one, one that Connor hasn’t seen for a long time. Not since San Francisco at least. “Hermes! She knows Hermes! You know, our birth dad? The one who gives us these bags? And Hermes —” 

“And Hermes said someone would help us in New York,” Connor finishes softly, weakly, unbelieving. This has got to be a dream. None of this can be real. But it’s nice to dream every once and while. 

“You promise?” Connor whispers, “She can’t get in?”

Annabeth nods with a small, understanding smile and she holds out a hand, steady and unwavering. “She can’t get in. You’ll be safe. I promise.”

When he and Travis both take her hand, Connor swears he sees Sunny for a second, sitting behind Annabeth, tail wagging. But when he blinks, there is nothing there. 

* * *

  
  


Life is great again. It feels like the old days again. Before Jamie and everything. They spend most of their days pissing Annabeth off, pranking Annabeth until she breaks and pranks them back, breaking into the camp store, hijacking the camp’s car for joyrides, forgetting their mother ever existed. It’s great. It feels normal. It was so easy to forget that anything bad ever happened in their life. 

Even with their lives going to shit when Luke goes evil on them, camp is still nice. 

Being counselors is nice. Connor can exercise his leading skills again. Put people in place. Kill a few enemies. Grieve over Luke becoming a douchebag privately. Mourn over Lee’s death, then Beckendorf’s. And now they’re going to a battle in Manhattan over the fate of the world. Connor hasn’t really ever left the camp since arriving, but he can’t back out now. Letting the world be destroyed because he’s scared of his mommy sounds like a really dumb excuse in his mind. He can’t imagine how stupid it must sound like coming out of his mouth. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Travis talks as they put on their armor. “It’s been years. 9 years to be exact. She can’t possibly know where we are. Do you think she even cares anymore? 9 years is a long, long time. What if mom forgot our faces? Wouldn’t that be funny? Hahahaha.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Connor says, leaning his back against Travis’s until he stops shaking. 

The mild hope all comes crumbling down when Travis spots their mother during the Battle of Manhattan. Just outside the sleeping barrier Morpheus put in place. 

“What now?” Travis asks after the battle, pale and pacing back and forth on top Zeus’s Fist. “What do we do? Claire knows we’re in New York. She can find out where Camp Half Blood is. The internet exists! She can google this place. And it will give her the address. Not directly, but close enough! And oh gods. That one time we tried to hire pizza and that poor delivery guy who actually came all the way here… she can question him! I mean, the guy couldn’t find it but he got the general direction!”

Connor listens until Travis’s throat goes hoarse, until the sun is just setting, until the panic just dwindles enough, before saying, “She can’t get in. Someone has to let her in.” 

Connor spends the rest of summer, September, and October telling the campers to be careful about who they let in. Don’t let in random strangers who say they have some relation to someone. Get one of the counselors. But that’s obviously not working when he sees it time and time again with the less street-savvy campers.

It’s like no one teaches stranger danger anymore. 

And with the deal Percy made, dozens of campers enter the camp and they’re letting in whoever into the camp too.

The first day of December, he sees her on Half-Blood Hill. Alone. Behind the barrier, but there. She’s too far away to see her face, but Connor’s sure Claire is smiling. She’s gone by the time Connor makes it to the hill.

He breaks the news to Travis in the cabin when they’re alone, saying it blunt and clear, like ripping a bandage off. “I saw her. She knows where we are. We have to go.” 

Travis didn’t move his bed, still and unmoving, and Connor watches his eyes go vacant, staring off into the past that no one could control, children who couldn’t really have done anything to save anyone. At least, that’s what Connor tells himself. He doesn’t like to think otherwise. 

“Or I could kill her. Then we wouldn’t have to run and leave everything behind again,” Connor suggests as nonchalantly as he can, but Travis’s jerking up from the bed and the blossoming horror has him quickly saying, “I'm joking. I’m joking.”

(He should have done it.) 

Connor scratches his cheek, looking guiltily off to the side as he says, “I want to tell our friends. Can I?”

Travis hesitates, thinking, before saying, “Let’s just tell Annabeth. I don’t want the others involved.” 

So they just tell Annabeth. 

And Annabeth tells them she’ll help them get out. 

Then in the middle of December, Percy goes missing.

And their escape plan was put on pause as they search for the lost hero. Connor fears maybe Claire took him. But no, haha, Roman gods are a ‘Thing’. And they are different from Greek gods and there’s Roman demigods. Like that’s totally more believable. But it’s interesting. There’s a place like Camp, safe and for people like them, but according to Jason, it’s more guarded, more protected, better organized, more disciplined, more armed. 

Basically, what Jason is saying is that his camp is better than theirs in every way imaginable. 

If everything goes to shit like Jason thinks it will, then another civil war will start and fuck it, they can’t leave when there’s another war brewing on the horizon. Not until he knows for sure the Romans don’t pose a threat. He’s hopeful as he watches the Argo II fly to the other Camp. And of course some god, titan, whatever possesses his friend and makes him shoot Camp Jupiter up, the Romans are a threat now and Connor worries about killing humans will do to Travis’s psyche again. 

It ends well though. The fighting is averted by Nico and Reyna and Coach Hedge. They instead fight side by side to defeat Gaea. Leo died. The giant war comes to an end. Watching Annabeth hugging Percy, talking about plans for the future, going to college together… it didn’t feel right to ruin the moment with a goodbye. 

The same day Connor takes Travis to stow away on a commercial airplane to Japan. The plan fails because of an unknown malfunction. Connor sneaks them to the plane going to China. Again. The same thing. Malfunction. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. All the same thing on every international flight. So Connor made new plans. They’re gonna take a cruise ship to Europe. But jokes on him. The ship malfunctions too. Every one of them. 

And only on the days they plan to leave.

There’s no such thing as coincidences.

So there goes a good chunk of his plans. That’s fine. That’s okay! So what? He’ll figure something else out. 

Camp Jupiter and Camp Half Blood have a working relationship. A while ago Annabeth and Reyna finalized a Camp Exchange Program, so campers can get a taste of both camps. It’s great. It’s fantastic! There’s no way Claire would know about Camp Jupiter. She only knows about the Greek side. (Why did you just assume that?) He’ll sign up to go first. Then Connor will make plans to have Travis replace Nico for the delivery trip. Then they will both be at Camp Jupiter and then they can hijack a car, drive it to Canada, manually boat to Greenland, then to Iceland, and then to the United Kingdom all while Claire thinks they’re still in New York. 

It sounds like a great plan and the group chariot ride he took to get to Camp Jupiter went fine. Not a single problem. 

He thought it would work out. 

He really thought it would. 

“ _Hey, a griffin just landed outside the perimeters_!”

Except it didn’t. 

The pegasi are missing. The chariot is gone. Will is found alone. Hurt. Dehydrated. Anemic. Sickly. On death’s bed. 

And when Will locks his eyes on him, Connor could see him whisper his brother’s name, could see a glimmer of hope lifting his face, and could see it all crumble away to grief. 

Will has the audacity to apologize. 

Will has the audacity to beg for forgiveness. 

Will has the audacity to blame himself for _his_ mistakes. 

It’s crazy. It’s stupid. Will barely knew Travis. They barely even talked and when they did it was full of snark and bite. They weren’t even friends, acquaintances at best, and yet Will went that far for them. 

He can see now, why Travis was so hesitant about letting others know, about letting Annabeth in on the plan. 

His brother is right. 

Nobody else should get involved. 

From here on out, it'll just be him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CAN YOU BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN WELL OVER A YEAR AND SIX MONTHS? I was still in college! I was starting my senior year! I just applied to vet school and realized during the interview that this isn’t what I wanna do! I wasted about $600 on those applications! I was happy in my apartment! I was jobless! 
> 
> Crazy how long it’s been but I finally wrote it! Next chapter (and the last) for this part is… not written yet but I do have the barest of an outline worked out so we’ll see how it goes. Warning ahead of time: the next part may just take as long and just as heavily indulgent. I am not a fast writer nor do I have a lot of free time right now plus my living situation is not ideal and work is becoming somewhat tiring and I had probably the worst birthday of my life but! BUT!!! I got this out without it becoming a two year hiatus so yay!? Go me? Let’s keep it up? You got this? 
> 
> Thank you to all who read to the end! I really appreciate and love all of you :D


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